


where the spirit meets the bones

by brella



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe - Love Actually Fusion, F/M, Falling In Love, Language Barrier, Mutual Pining, Sad with a Happy Ending, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Sign Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28257093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/brella
Summary: “I’m afraid I won’t be the most thrilling company,” Zelda says curtly. “In fact, I’d like to be disturbed as little as possible if it’s all the same to—”Link suddenly begins making a series of quick motions with his hands—fingers flitting at his lips, wrists crossed and then swept outwards. His expression is shy and downcast. Zelda stares at the display.“Oh, did I not mention?” Daruk exclaims. "The little guy doesn’t talk!”Or: Link and Zelda, except it's the best storyline inLove Actually.
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 391





	where the spirit meets the bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astrid_fischer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrid_fischer/gifts).



> Happy birthday to my darling Lily. 
> 
> This is, like, a weird pastiche of the Zelda universe and a vague, somewhat-modern-ish setting that one might find in a Poirot TV movie? You know, like they have cars but not smartphones, and women can get PhDs. And Gorons are still Gorons. And Zora are still Zora. And Rito are still Rito. Don't worry about it! 
> 
> In other words this is written for one specific person, whom I have spent the better part of this year laughing and watching things with, and if it happens to be something that you, also, enjoy, then that's wonderful!
> 
> Very fond of [this recording](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_wFwiDW7Fg) of "Portuguese Love Theme," and listened to it in a trance. Also listened to the soundtrack to _The Holiday_ , Joni Mitchell's _For the Roses_ , and Taylor Swift's "ivy," which has vibes that really match this, minus the whole cheating on your husband thing. 
> 
> Huge appreciation for [this ASL dictionary](https://www.handspeak.com/word/search/). I think that sign language is one of the most gorgeous things in the world, so I hope I was able to do it justice.

Zelda’s father dies on a winter’s night, an hour or so before the first snow. Zelda is not awake when it happens. One of the nursemaids comes to tell her— _the master’s passed, miss_ —in a quiet, broken rush, as if it’s somehow her fault. The bedside lamp is still on in his bedroom. His eyes are still open. 

Zelda would not strictly say that her father loved her, but she loved him well enough. As Urbosa liked to say, her father had always loved her in the wrong direction—he loved who he believed she could be, but not who she was. Zelda supposes that orphaned daughters have been left with less, so she takes it for what it is and cries for days, unable to so much as lift her head from her pillow. She cries for the love she might have earned, if she had only worked a little harder, if she had only cared a little more; she lets herself feel useless and alone for a while, and then she gets up, cuts her hair with a pair of fabric scissors, and makes the funeral arrangements. 

“You ought to get away,” Urbosa tells her after he’s been buried—standing beside her under the naked branches of an elm tree, her sharp face tastefully veiled by her black fascinator. “Let the house run itself for a while. Focus on yourself.”

“What I ought to focus on is my dissertation,” Zelda murmurs, her eyes red-rimmed and her fingers numb. She had remembered to wear a scarf, but not gloves. Strange, the things one forgets in times like these, when all the mind is good for is remembering. “I’ve still got to have it finished by the spring’s end.” 

Urbosa looks down at her, but Zelda does not turn her head to meet it. She knows what she will find: pity and exasperation, a touch of love. She doubts that she could stomach a single one of them. 

“I can’t do it here,” she continues in a small voice. “Everywhere I look is just—like I can feel his shame, even more than before. It’s awful, but I think a part of me had hoped that it would go to the grave with him, and I could finally… have some peace.” 

She crams her face into her hands, sickened to hear how it sounds—and then the horror and grief converge, and the next thing she knows she’s sobbing. 

“Urbosa,” she wails in the empty cemetery, “what am I going to do?” 

Urbosa’s hand lands on her shoulder and with the gentlest strength steers her close. Zelda collapses against her blazer, weeps out all the snot and tears she has. 

“You take it one day at a time, little bird,” Urbosa tells her, and kisses the crown of her head. “One minute at a time, if you have to. We cannot triumph over grief, but we can come to weather it, in time.”

When Zelda’s crying is through, Urbosa pets her hair with one hand and guides her to the waiting car with the other. Zelda sniffles on her shoulder as she has so many times before, eyes puffed shut against the cold. This is where her father will be forever, she thinks; not in his study, not on the veranda, not in the doorways of the grand old estate that is now hers and hers alone—here, among the elms, beside her mother. 

“You know,” Urbosa says in the car as Zelda watches the headstones crawl by, “I think I’m three degrees of separation from a summer house in Hateno Village.” 

Zelda turns to her slowly. “Really?” 

Urbosa nods, crossing one leg over the other. “It was fixed up just a couple of years ago by my cousin’s husband’s boss. Lovely little property, right over a pond. And it’s a short enough hike from town that you’ll have privacy, but won’t be isolated.”

“Hateno’s practically my backyard, miss,” Impa chimes in from behind the wheel, catching Zelda’s eye in the rear view mirror. “I’d be close by, if you needed me.” 

Urbosa gently sets her hand on Zelda’s knee. “Why don’t I have Daruk look into it?” 

Zelda wipes at her raw nose with a tissue. She considers the offer for a moment only. 

* * *

The house in Hateno is, all told, much more of a cottage—made of stucco and clay roof tiles, nestled at the foot of the Erbo Mountains. It is accessible only by a narrow wooden bridge which connects to the winding trail into town. There is no electricity or running water; no driveway, no radio; nothing that could be called a modern amenity at all. Her father would have hated it, and for that reason Zelda is determined to adore it. 

It does not snow in Hateno, but the air is still sharp, and Zelda feels frost crunch beneath her boots as she and Daruk approach the front door. She lingers, breath misting in front of her face, to take in the towering chimney, which seems to be leaning in several directions at once. 

“Shame you aren’t here for the summer,” Daruk tells her as they cross the threshold. “That tree in the yard has the tastiest apples, let me tell you, and Firly Pond out back is perfect for swimming… but I guess you’re here to work, after all.” 

Zelda, only half-listening, cranes her neck to look at the vaulted ceiling. It’s a simple house, for its size. All of the wood is dark, not quite smoothed down. There’s a loft overhead with a bed and a desk. The ground floor is for the kitchen, which amounts to an iron stove and a wooden table with two chairs. On the table someone has set out a little vase of winter wildflowers—culver’s root and ironweed. 

So this is to be her home until the spring. Well, it will do. 

“…and of course, you’ll have a housekeeper,” Daruk goes on, tugging at his beard with one huge rocky hand. “Local fella, lives down the hill. Just to take care of the basics for you; meals and chopping firewood and changing the linens and all—”

Zelda jolts back to attention. “A housekeeper? I understood I’d be _alone_ , Daruk—”

She is, as ever, mildly astonished by how such an enormous Goron can shrink under her scrutiny. He lays his hand sheepishly on the back of his head. 

“Well, look, uh, Urbosa insisted you have somebody look after you—”

“I don’t need looking after!” 

“S-Sure enough, miss, I’ve got no doubt about that, only—oh!” He seems to catch a movement through the front window, and booms out a laugh with far too much relief for Zelda’s liking. “What do you know! Here he comes now! Come on out, I’ll introduce ya…” 

Zelda glares frostily at his back as he leads her out into the yard. The sky is a sharp rink of blue. In the distance she can hear the village beginning to wake, the dye-makers and goatherds calling out to each other in the brisk, biting morning. 

“Little guy!” Daruk calls jovially, throwing out his arms ahead of her. “Long time no see!” 

Zelda, annoyed, stands on her tiptoes to see around him. There, at the end of the bridge, is a young man—Hylian, surely no older than she, with a sure posture and a delicate face. His golden hair is tied back in a ponytail, and he’s bundled in plain winter clothes, carrying a knapsack over his shoulder with one hand. He looks up at Daruk’s greeting and beams, and Zelda has never seen such a striking expression, like the glittering of light on water, like the quick flight of a sparrow from a branch. She falters, and forgets her words. 

“This is Link,” Daruk says, and turns to one side to face Zelda and clap Link on the back at the same time. 

Link stumbles forward with the impact, ending up much closer to Zelda than he had been before. When he meets her eye, the smile slips off of his face. He straightens up, and says nothing. 

“He’ll be coming by once a day,” Daruk explains. “Eight to four, more or less. That way you won’t have to worry about breakfast and lunch, and he’ll make sure everything’s spick and span.” 

The bridge of Link’s nose is just slightly crooked, as if it had been broken a long time ago. His brown leather fingerless gloves reveal evenly cut nails and worn, cold-pink skin. Up close, he’s perhaps an inch shorter than she is. His eyes are blue: hot July blue, southern ocean blue, glazed porcelain blue. And they seem to see everything—everything inside of her, grief and muscle, ambition and bones—and be fazed by nothing. 

She doesn’t like him. 

“You two are gonna get along just fine,” Daruk goes on. “He’ll be a nice companion for ya, miss!” 

A _companion_? Oh, please! 

“I’m afraid I won’t be the most thrilling company,” Zelda says curtly. “In fact, I’d like to be disturbed as little as possible if it’s all the same to—”

Link suddenly begins making a series of quick motions with his hands—fingers flitting at his lips, wrists crossed and then swept outwards. His expression is shy and downcast. Zelda stares at the display.

“Oh, did I not mention?” Daruk exclaims. "The little guy doesn’t talk! Can’t understand anything except Hateno dialect, either—but don’t sweat it. He’ll take care of everything for ya, no problem. It’ll be like he ain’t even here!” 

Zelda flounders for a moment, unsure of what to say. Link tugs on Daruk’s elbow and signs to him, brushing his index finger down his palm, tapping the other to his temple and then seeming to pinch an invisible thread and pull at it. Daruk laughs. 

“He says you must be real smart,” he says. “He’s lookin’ forward to reading your paper!” 

Zelda flushes. “Oh. No one has ever—I mean—” She dips her head unsurely. “Thank you.” 

Link smiles, his hair twined in sunlight. He must understand that, at least—because a moment later he sets his fingers just beneath his lips, and sweeps down his arm, as if blowing her a kiss. Zelda goes even redder than before. 

“Hah!” Daruk guffaws. “Don’t worry, miss, he’s just sayin’ you’re welcome.” 

And Zelda’s embarrassment crests into anger, as it very often does.

“I don’t care what he says,” she snaps to Daruk, “just so long as he leaves me alone.” 

Without another word, she stomps back into the house. 

* * *

Link, to his credit, is as silent as his reputation dictates—sometimes too silent, sneaking up on Zelda when she’s engrossed in transcription and scaring the daylights out of her. He moves through the house with a quickness and ease that she has never quite seen before, nothing like her father’s nervous servants, whistling prettily in the bright afternoons. He sweeps, and cleans the windows, and stokes the fire, and hangs the laundry—brings her mugs of Rito chai before she even knows she needs them, always ensures the water is hot and fresh for her evening baths. It turns out he’s also quite the chef, fixing her mushroom omelettes and salmon meunière and Kakariko-style rice balls, and, once, a spiced nutcake. He has a habit of peeking over her shoulder when she’s typing or reading, although as the weeks wear on Zelda finds that she minds it less and less. 

They develop their own faltering way of communicating—Zelda cannot seem to break the habit of talking to him, openly and gladly, and though she’s sure he can’t understand a word of it he always seems to listen so raptly, even if she’s only thinking out loud about how Goron kennings might reveal more about the functionalities of ancient technology than any other source, or about the various possible translations of the Ancient Sheikah term that has become _Divine Beast_. He, in turn, will occasionally sign small things to her. Zelda grows accustomed to his hands, his wrists, the kind precision of his fingertips. She grows accustomed to watching. 

Before long, a moon has passed. The nights grow colder; the dark comes quicker. The frost kills what green things remain. When Zelda wakes in the mornings, it is to a dim house—but she can always hear Link downstairs, cracking eggs and peeling fruit, whistling the oldest songs. 

It’s a strange, delicate thing, this companionship of theirs, in which they can tell each other nothing—and so she comes to learn about Link what cannot be told, only seen. That he cuts his fingernails short. That his favorite food is meat skewers. That he loves horses. That he likes to climb trees, and collect little rocks, and fold sheets into perfect squares. That somewhere there is an ache in him, and that it lines up at the edges with her own. She learns that he hates the cold but loves the rain; and that he always hears her call his name, no matter what part of the house she is in. And like a fool, she comes to like him. 

* * *

By the end of the second month she has completed half of her paper. She writes to Impa in Kakariko to tell her the news. _There is a good chance it is all complete nonsense_ , she writes, _but if nothing else it’s more nonsense than I had two months ago_. 

An unseasonably sunny streak of days inspires her to work outdoors, set up at the typewriter on the short cliff overlooking Firly Pond. The brisk air clears her head, she finds, even though the only sweater that keeps her warm enough in it is one of Link’s, a thick green wool thing with cable knits as thick as her arm. He’s letting her borrow it again today. In her selfishness, she never wants to take it off. 

She frowns at the sentence she has yet to finish. The next word will not come. She has found that happening quite often these days. A phrase eludes her, replaced in her mind by a movement of Link’s hands, as if they will tell her better through gesture what cannot be said; as if she understands a single one of them at all, and is not simply imagining vowels between the knuckles, flickers of prosody in the bending joints; reducing this, too, to a thing she can control. 

She rubs her hands over her wind-stung face. _Further study of ancient technology will demonstrate_ —Link’s finger pressed to his inner wrist, his open hand swaying downwards. Link’s fingers cradling an apple slice. Link’s fingers pressed to his mouth. Link’s mouth. Her fingers easing into Link’s mouth—

She claps her palms onto her cheeks. Ridiculous! 

At that moment Link appears in her peripheral vision, as if this horrible unwelcome thought had summoned him directly, and Zelda feels so ashamed that she could fold in on herself—but he’s only brought a new mug of chai to replace her empty one from an hour ago, which is presently weighing down the loose pages of her paper. 

He smiles brightly when she glances up at him, letting out a breath. A strong gust of wind tosses his hair to one side. His cheeks and nose are flushed, and one of his blue earrings catches the sunlight like a coin. 

He gives her a tiny wave, as if they’ve just run into one another, even though they’ve seen each other several times today already. 

Zelda looks away, pretending to be very absorbed in the word she still has not typed. She does not wave back. 

Were she not so determined to ignore him she might think to stop him from picking up the mug she is quite obviously using as a paperweight. As it is, he picks it up. And as it is, over a hundred pages of her doctorate thesis go scattering into the wind. 

“Ah,” Link says. 

“AH!” Zelda says, much louder. 

In an instant, Link drops both mugs, one of them spilling chai onto the dirt, and sprints for the cliff’s edge. A year’s work cascades around him into Firly Pond. Zelda watches it almost peacefully, for a moment. Then she realizes Link is pulling off his boots and trousers. 

“Please, it’s not worth it!” she cries out, and finally thinks to scramble up from her chair. What a lie! “Surely I can type it all up again, it’s not—not…” 

The rest of her sentence dies in her mouth. Link pulls his shirt over his head, with such swiftness that his ponytail comes undone. His hair falls freely to his naked shoulders. The sunlight through the linden branches illuminates the muscles in his back, smooth and subtle though they are; his angular elbows, his calves and ankles, the small tattoo of a Sheikah rune at the base of his spine. He’s much more fit than his baggy winter clothes would lead her to believe—but what had she believed? 

He curls and uncurls his fingers, spreads his bare feet apart. She catches only a glimpse of his steeled expression before he swings back his arms, draws in a breath, and executes a perfect dive off the cliff, disappearing from sight. 

She hears a splash. A gasp. Another splash, like arms slapping the water. Finally it occurs to her that she ought to go after him, so she does, sprinting down the trail. 

It’s a disastrous sight. The wide pond is littered with pages, and Link is bobbing between them, his hair curtaining his face, collecting them as best she can. Zelda tries valiantly to get her sweater off while moving, but she stumbles at the shore and falls in with all her clothes still on—plunging into water so cold it could be white-hot, the kind of cold that all but rips her cells apart. She surfaces, flailing, with a shriek. 

“Blessed goddess above, it’s cold!” she screams. “Oh—oh, I really must start making copies—”

A few feet from her, Link has the audacity to start laughing. If Zelda weren’t on the brink of hypothermia she might take a moment to admire the sound, silly and spluttering and very obviously at her expense though it may be. 

Instead, like a raving lunatic, she starts laughing with him. 

* * *

After they’ve both had hot baths and hung the salvaged pages on a clothesline to dry out, Zelda and Link huddle by the stove, wrapped in every sheet, towel, and blanket in the house. Little rushes of laughter seize them still, replacing the words, the apologies, the _what-a-pair-we-make_ s—the only sound in the house, the only sound for miles. Link warms up some chicken broth and pours it into bowls, sprinkles it with dried herbs and pepper, and the two of them sip it in companionable silence.

Link had lit the candles on the tables and windowsills when dusk had fallen, and now their scattered light opens up the dark gently, suffusing the details of Link’s face with an almost otherworldly glow. He has such long eyelashes, Zelda thinks, with a touch of surprise. Don’t they get in the way? 

He must notice her staring at him, because he glances over at her with the rim of the bowl at his lips and smiles. Perhaps a month ago Zelda would have flushed and looked away, but now she only smiles back, bearing witness to that miraculous little expression on Link’s face, committing it to memory. 

Link seems to consider something, then turns slightly closer to her in his chair. He points upstairs, and when Zelda follows the gesture she sees the edge of the desk where she often works. He waits for her to look back at him and then mimes writing something—this is different from his sign language, closer to charades—and then a questioning movement of his hand, beckoning for an answer. 

“What am I… writing?” Zelda asks. “Well, I—”

Link shakes his head. He repeats the motions again, but this time at the end he lifts his hand to his temple, curling down all fingers but his pinkie, and mouths—

 _Why?_

“Oh. Oh! Why am I writing about ancient technology? It’s—” Surely she’s been asked this question, by far more skeptical parties, to have a concise answer by now, but she finds that she wants to give Link something far more genuine. “It’s always called to me, I suppose. I believe that with proper study it can be a force for radical change… good change, accessible change. That it can teach us about one another, and about who we have been, and who we can become, as a society, as a world—” She’s babbling, but Link looks moved by it all the same. She lays one hand over her heart, pressing down for emphasis. “It’s… something that I love. I love it.” 

Recognition sparks in Link’s eyes at the word _love_. He nods vigorously, then cranes his neck and makes a sweeping gesture at the house. Zelda’s eyes linger on his throat for a moment before he comes back down. 

He taps his palm against his chest, watching her expectantly. 

Zelda frowns. “The house… I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” 

Link points to her. Lays his hand over his chest again, as she had. 

“I don’t—know what you’re saying—”

Link reaches across the small distance between them and takes her by the wrist. Hesitantly, he guides her hand to his chest, and holds it there. 

With his other hand, he points once more to the house. He points once more to her. Finally he sets his jaw and squeezes her hand as close as it can come—and beneath the fabric, pressed fast against her palm, Zelda can feel the steady beat of his heart. 

All around them, the house creaks and settles, countless weights and inches meeting in the dark in familiar places. Zelda’s bare feet are cold, and her hair is still damp, and her pulse is thudding in her ears. She can measure Link’s life beneath her palm—breath by breath, beat by beat, each one like some holy offering, but there is nothing holy about her. 

There is nothing brave about her, either, for all she does is sit there, unmoving, unspeaking, with Link’s whole being in her hand—knowing what she wants to do with them, but not what she should. 

She can see how he retreats: it’s in the eyes first, and then the rest of him. His grip on her hand loosens, lingers for a moment longer, and then lets go. Zelda lets her hand fall limp into her lap. 

“Hah,” Link says, with a sad attempt at a smile. He signs a circle around his chest, clockwise—and his eyes drift away—and he stands, and gently takes her empty bowl from her hands, and moves away into the dark to dress. 

* * *

Early the next morning, Zelda receives word from the Hateno courier that she’s needed on business back home. Her father’s estate is a mess, and his political affairs moreso; the solicitors will need her on hand to sort it out. A week ago she might have denied it, resented it—but now she flees into it gratefully. 

By the time Link arrives for his shift, she is already nearly through with packing. She hurries past him, eyes downcast, when he freezes in the front doorway at the sight of her trunk. 

“It’s an urgent matter, I’m afraid,” she says with her back to him, clicking shut her typewriter case, though she knows he won’t understand a word. “No more idyllic days in the countryside. No more playing at being a scholar. This is what I’m for.” 

Even as she says them so coolly, the words feel wrong in her mouth, hard enough to chip her teeth on. She tries to keep herself busy, tries to move about the room quickly so he can’t keep his eyes on her long enough to see—what? The pain? The love? Both? 

But Link sees everything. He always has. 

“Impa will be in town to meet me in an hour’s time,” she goes on, starting toward the staircase. “You needn’t escort me, I can carry all my things. I’m sure Daruk will handle the rest of your pay—”

A force at her arm silences her. She stops above the third stair to find Link’s hand closed over her elbow, holding her back. 

How unbearably he looks at her, even now—with such terror and devotion in his eyes, such confusion tightening his brow—as if he would give her everything, and she would deserve none of it. As if to say, _Forgive me_. As if to say, _Don’t go_. As if to say—

“You’ve been a great help to me,” Zelda says, hating how her voice shakes. “I’ll do all I can to make sure you’re compensated accordingly.” 

Mutely, Link shakes his head. Zelda doesn’t know whether it’s to deny her or to express that he doesn’t understand, that he could never understand—but she supposes it doesn’t matter. 

She tugs her arm free. Three stairs below, he lets it go. 

He remains in place, head bowed to conceal any expression, as she moves about the loft to collect the last of her things. When she comes back down the stairs, he moves aside. 

She steps outside, her typewriter case in one hand and the handle of one end of her trunk in the other, her coat still unbuttoned. What a mess she must look, tear-streaked and uncombed, with three hours of fitful sleep to her name. What will Impa think? She’ll cross that bridge when she comes to it. But first, she has to cross the one in front of her, and make the winding hike back down to Hateno. 

Suddenly Link rushes into her path, blocking the way. She tries to step around him, but he mirrors her. 

“Link—”

Link signs something she can’t follow. 

“You’re moving too fast!”

Link stomps his foot, and Zelda falls silent, watching his hands. Sweep. Home. You. Forever and ever. 

_I would sweep your house forever. Any house._

“Link,” she says brokenly. 

Link starts to gesture with more fervor, harder to follow, his eyes shining with what Zelda realizes too late are unshed tears. Read. Walk. Heart. You. You. You. 

“I don’t understand,” she half-shouts, out of frustration and anger and something else, something rooted so deep in her chest she doubts that she will ever be able to dislodge it. “Link, I can’t—”

Link lifts his miraculous hands, closes them around her face. His right thumb traces the softest line to the bow of her lips. When he kisses her—kisses her, _kisses_ her under the pale milk glass sky—she swears he leaves a fragment of his voice on her tongue, a gentle whimper, like no language she will ever hear. 

He breaks away after a moment only, but that moment is long enough for Zelda’s hands to find his elbows, long enough for her to rise to him, and long enough for her heart to split in two. 

He anchors his forehead to her forehead—pushes, eyes wrenched shut, voice raw—slips those hands up into her hair as if she’s some cherished thing, as if he means to never let go. And then he lets go. 

He detains her no longer. Back into the house he goes, scrubbing a hand over his face, breaking the frost beneath his feet—and Zelda does not chase him. 

  
  


* * *

Zelda settles the matter at home. Within a month she’s forgotten it entirely, but she does not forget the boy from Hateno. 

In May, she successfully defends her thesis and earns her doctorate. She is invited to join an archaeological dig in the Hebra Mountains in the coming year, and in a heartbeat she accepts. 

“I’m told he asks about you still,” Urbosa says to her one afternoon. The two of them are seated in the greenhouse, where they have always taken their tea, ever since Zelda was small. “You could write to him.” 

“He wants no letter from me,” Zelda murmurs. “Let him be free of me. It was foolish, what I did, and selfish besides.” 

“Selfish to love and be loved in return?” Urbosa says. “Little bird, there are much more selfish things to do.” 

* * *

“Well—sure I could teach you, miss,” Impa says with a touch of bewilderment. “But what use are the Necluda Signs to you?” 

“Let’s call it curiosity,” Zelda says, for she isn’t brave enough to call it anything else. “I’m in your debt, Impa. Be patient with me. I learn slow.”

“Oh, miss,” Impa scoffs, “we both know _that_ isn’t true.” 

* * *

Zelda is applying for a grant to begin restoration of the Tabantha Tower when she realizes that she will love Link for the rest of her godforsaken life. It comes on the heels of a thought about whether or not she has used too many semicolons. She is alone in her childhood bedroom, at the window overlooking the gardens, loving Link and knowing that there is nothing to be done about it, that there will never be anything to be done about it; and the grant is due at eight o’clock A.M., in four hours. 

So she finishes and submits the grant, and packs her mother’s carpet bag with summer clothes, and calls for a car. 

* * *

“Where are we _going_?” Impa whines, trailing along behind Zelda up the road out of Hateno Village. “Goddess in your sweet and holy sky, why do you make it so hot? Why? _Why_?” 

“Just a bit further,” Zelda says breathlessly. “I know this is the way.” 

A moment later she sees it—that winding, glorious chimney, rising up over the crest of the trail. A great rush of strength comes to her. She practically runs the rest of the way, breathless and beaming, even as Impa shouts in protest behind her. 

It looks quite the same, the house—but the apple tree is full and ripe, and the grass is green, and all of the windows are open. Then surely someone is home! 

_Daruk has told me there are no guests there at the present moment, no_ , Urbosa had told her, with an eyebrow far too arched for Zelda’s liking. _Why do you ask? Some last-minute work to be done?_

Zelda finds herself before the front door. She finds herself knocking. A moment later, it opens on a lovely Zora girl, about half Zelda’s height and at least twenty times redder. 

“Oh, hello,” she says—shy, perhaps, but pleasant. “Have we… met before?” 

“I,” Zelda says. “I’m—terribly sorry, I thought—I was told there would be no guests…” 

“Oh, we aren’t guests,” the Zora explains. “We just come through to clean from time to time, and pick the apples during fruiting season.” 

Zelda’s heart quickens wildly. “Then he’s here with you? Please—please, may I speak with him?”

The Zora brightens. “Why, yes!” She cranes her neck, calling back into the house. “Revali! There’s a Hylian here to see you!” 

“A _Hylian_?” a voice retorts haughtily. 

“Don’t be a grouch. She seems very nice!” 

“What business does a Hylian have with me? You’re sure she isn’t here for that wingless idiot?” 

“Now, now! What have I told you about calling Link names?” 

“I-I’m sorry,” Zelda interjects, just as a very annoyed-looking Rito peers around the door frame. “I’m actually here for—for Link.” 

The Rito—Revali, who certainly has impressive plumage but is smaller than any Rito Zelda has ever seen—rolls his eyes to the ceiling, clicking his beak. “You see, Mipha?! You see?” 

“There’s no need to shout!” 

“ _Link_ ,” Revali says, with such disdainful emphasis that Zelda might think he were speaking of a mosquito, “is not employed here in the summers. He’s probably up at that blasted new Ancient Tech Lab where he spends all his time these days—”

“Ancient Tech Lab?” Zelda blurts out. “I need you to take me there, _please_ —”

Revali leans in closer, tilting his head. “On what business?” 

“The young miss means to marry him,” Impa pipes up angrily. “So if you could stand to get your tailfeathers out of the knot they’re so clearly in…”

“I’ll take you there,” Mipha says, throwing out one small arm to stop an extremely puffed-out Revali from lunging at them. “It’s not far at all! I’m Mipha, by the way. You must be Zelda. Oh, he talks of you so. It’s an honor to meet you at last.”

She loops her arm through Zelda’s, leaning close, as if they are the oldest of friends. “Shall we?” 

* * *

News travels fast. Half the town must be in tow by the time Zelda is hiking up the hill to the Ancient Tech Lab. Apparently it’s only just been built—Impa explains it to her on the way up: that Purah, who had been Zelda’s colleague some time ago but has since retreated from public view to focus on her work, had commissioned its construction to study runes. 

“Honestly. My own sister and she never tells me anything,” Impa had huffed as they passed a goat paddock. “I only heard about it a week ago, you know. Can you believe it? She could blow herself up and I wouldn’t hear about it.” 

“You say Link works there?” Zelda asks Revali. “With Ancient Technology? But he never—”

“Ah, yes—you see, miss, you may have noticed that I am sophisticated and interesting, where he is not? So I wouldn’t know about such things.” He fluffs out his neck feathers. “He developed a sudden interest in it last year. That’s all I know. He practically begged that lead scientist to take him on as her assistant. I can’t imagine it pays as well as the house-cleaning and horse-training, but then, he’s certainly not renowned for his brains.” 

“There it is!” Mipha exclaims, pointing with one finned hand. “Should I announce you?” 

Zelda lifts her head to see a low cottage with a Sheikah symbol on the door and a huge tower beside it, which surely must have once been a silo of some kind. An Ancient Furnace is erected in the front yard, burning blue. 

“No, I’ll announce myself, I think,” Zelda replies, which she hopes is an elegant cover-up for the sudden wobbling of her knees. “I-Impa was exaggerating, you know, I… I don’t plan to ask for _marriage_ —”

“Begging your pardon,” Mipha says gently, “but I suspect that even if you did, he would say yes.” 

This doesn’t assuage Zelda’s terror, exactly, but it certainly changes its shape. Well, nothing for it. She knocks on the door. 

The next few moments pass her in a haze. Purah opens the door, and Impa yells something at her, and the next thing Zelda knows Impa is ushering her into the lab, which is an absolute disaster. Strewn papers, loose screws and springs on every surface, open books on the floor—and not a single curtain open in the place. 

There is a movement across the room—the back door opening. Someone coming inside. Link, with a basket of sunshrooms under his arm, coming inside. 

They meet eyes in an instant. Zelda’s next breath is sucked right out of her chest. There’s a smudge of oil on his cheek, and his shirtsleeves are rolled up. He looks beautiful. 

“Go on, miss,” Impa whispers at her side. 

It takes her a moment—a moment during which she’s convinced she’s forgotten everything Impa had taught her—but, breath held, eyes open, she lifts her hands. 

_Link_ , she signs. _I’m sorry. Ran away. Think about you every day. Your cooking. Your shy smile. Your heart. When you would bring me tea. When you would go home at night, and we would say good-bye._ The motions are clumsy, but she sees each one through to the end. _I never wanted to say good-bye to you. I wanted you to stay._

Link is gazing at her in a way that she couldn’t interpret even with all the time in the world to try. He lowers the basket of sunshrooms to the floor, his fingers coming loose around the woven handle. Zelda thinks of that night in front of the stove, when she had felt his beating heart beneath her hand. She swears that she can feel it now, too. 

“Oh, answer her, you nincompoop,” Revali snaps. “Some of us have _work_ to do?” 

“You’re free to leave at anytime, Revali,” Mipha tells him gently. 

“I _know_ ,” Revali says, not leaving. 

Zelda’s whole soul is pressed to the roof of her mouth. She waits. She waits, and prays, and watches Link’s hands for an answer. 

“I,” Link says slowly, in a rough and careful voice. “Would. Stay. Always.” 

Zelda smiles. A sound breaks out from her—a sound of joy, a sound of triumph, a sound without language. The sound of her soul. 

She lets it ring, and runs to him. 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/brells_), if you like!


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